It’s been another dreadful year for the public image of law schools. Applications are down, but tuition is up. The false reporting of employment statistics by schools—the same institutions charged with teaching ethics to our prospective lawyers—is so rampant that both U.S. News and the American Bar Association have intervened to find more reliable reporting. Frustrated, unemployed, debt-laden recent graduates have taken to flaming the Net. The New York Times and our blogging colleague Steven J. Harper have called out prominent education reformers for one of the rankest of academic sins—hypocrisy—at their institutions. And the ABA House of Delegates has roused itself to “urge” the law schools that it accredits to “implement” programs to “develop practice-ready lawyers.”
The ABA is on the right track, and I recommend the fine memo supporting the delegates’ resolution for a summary of the current situation. But urging won’t be enough.
